Resources & Services

Consulting

Talk to us about your ideas while you are writing your grant proposal. We can help you incorporate the cost of appropriate computational support, including appropriate software licenses and analytical personnel. The Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program (CBBP) uses its established service center for non-collaborative projects, but prefers to collaborate with researchers on grant proposals.

Services

Bioinformatics Support

The Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB) Program conducts high quality bioinformatics and statistical genetics analysis of biological and biomedical data. Our interdisciplinary team provides support services and solutions for basic science and clinical and translational research for both within and outside the University of Miami. We have expertise in building infrastructure, developing algorithms, and designing and implementing analytical approaches. We bring computer scientists and engineers together with clinicians and medical research scientists to develop the methods and tools needed for the analysis of complex, high-dimensional data sets. We offer support in study design, various “-omics” data analysis, grant and manuscript preparation, and responding to reviewers.

All the services can be provided provided on a collaborative research basis or using a fee-for-service mechanism.

Research Collaboration

The CBB program provides bioinformatics support to investigators, who include a CBB member as a co-investigator or key personnel in the grant application. Bioinformatics personnel percentage time on a grant should be representative of the actual effort required to meet deliverables and is agreed with CBB upon grant submission. In addition, investigators should discuss and cover hardware and computational costs according to the data volume and estimated data processing time.

CBB also provides grant preparation support including in-depth data management and preliminary data analysis. In this process, if the prospective grant is going to cover effort for a CBB member, the first 20 hours of bioinformatics analysis are free. Any effort exceeding this should be covered on a fee-for-service basis.

For custom solution developments with open-ended scientific questions, where it is difficult to estimate the associated time, the CBB program provides a fee-for service option billed on an hourly basis.

Ultimately, CBB will work with the investigator to find a funding model that works best for the project at hand. Payment arrangements should be made before any services are performed, with full payment due upon completion of work. If the investigator decides to terminate the project or interrupt the collaboration before completion, hourly rates will apply. The costs will be based on actual time and resources spent on a specific project.

Project Timelines and Deadlines

The CBB program encourages principal investigators to inform the CBB program, in advance, of any deadlines for abstracts, reports, meetings and grant applications.

To better assist you, please contact us at least 6 weeks prior to the submission deadline on any grant, and earlier if the study design has yet to be fully developed. Last-minute requests may not always be accommodated due to limited resources and time constraints of other projects.

Acknowledgement and/or Co-Authorship

It is important to agree on criteria for authorship early in the collaboration. Co-authorship is requested when CBB personnel have made a significant contribution to the research in the form of consultation, experimental design, data analysis or other material assistance, regardless of the funding mechanism. Co-authorship implies that the CBB program can defend the methodology and results of the analysis, assist in writing the methods and possibly other parts of the manuscript, and respond to reviewers comments on the bioinformatics aspects of the paper. The investigator is expected to give the CBB program an opportunity to review and edit appropriate sections of the manuscript at least one week before submission. In cases where the bioinformatician did not provide significant intellectual input (e.g. advise on experiment design or preferable methods during a meeting) acknowledgement in the manuscript is sufficient.

Data Handling

All data not exceeding 200GB will be held in the Center of Computational Science’s storage for the duration of active analysis. Thereafter, data will be subject to deletion. It is the responsibility of the investigator to ensure that a copy of the data is preserved for future analysis. Data exceeding 200GB will require purchase of additional storage. All costs related for additional storage and data maintenance need to be discussed and covered before the project starts.

Human Subjects Research and IRB Approval

It is the Principal investigator’s responsibility to de-identify the data and to obtain IRB approval for any project handled by CBB, including adding amendments for CBB personnel, when applicable. IRB information may be requested before the project can proceed.